Uploaded April 2021 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
“Acquisitions as Activism: Preserving and Celebrating Creative and Cultural Legacies Through Collection Development,” by Todd Fuller is part of “Perspectives in History,” the 2021 Oklahoma History Conference. This session will explore the history and motivations of creating archives devoted to the American West, especially for collecting Native or tribal nation-related materials and documents in the early- to mid-twentieth century. Fuller will also share reasons for establishing new archives of color at the Western History Collections (WHC), University of Oklahoma Libraries.
In the spring of 2019, the WHC began implementing a new collection initiative, the Contemporary Native American Authors Collection. Initially, the thrust of the initiative will focus on authors and creatives with connections to Oklahoma. The WHC seeks to celebrate the literary legacies of contemporary American Indian authors, thereby expanding the collections’ representative voices and increasing perspectives beyond the prevailing/dominant narrative.
Todd Fuller is curator of the Western History Collections at the University of Oklahoma Libraries. He is also the author of two books, 60 Feet Six Inches and Other Distances from Home: The (Baseball) Life of Mose YellowHorse (Holy Cow! Press, 2002) and To the Disappearance (Mongrel Empire Press, 2015). His poems, stories, and essays have appeared in numerous regional and national publications, including the American Indian Culture and Research Journal, American Literary Review, and Cimarron Review.
“Acquisitions as Activism: Preserving and Celebrating Creative and Cultural Legacies Through Collection Development,” by Todd Fuller is part of “Perspectives in History,” the 2021 Oklahoma History Conference. This session will explore the history and motivations of creating archives devoted to the American West, especially for collecting Native or tribal nation-related materials and documents in the early- to mid-twentieth century. Fuller will also share reasons for establishing new archives of color at the Western History Collections (WHC), University of Oklahoma Libraries.
In the spring of 2019, the WHC began implementing a new collection initiative, the Contemporary Native American Authors Collection. Initially, the thrust of the initiative will focus on authors and creatives with connections to Oklahoma. The WHC seeks to celebrate the literary legacies of contemporary American Indian authors, thereby expanding the collections’ representative voices and increasing perspectives beyond the prevailing/dominant narrative.
Todd Fuller is curator of the Western History Collections at the University of Oklahoma Libraries. He is also the author of two books, 60 Feet Six Inches and Other Distances from Home: The (Baseball) Life of Mose YellowHorse (Holy Cow! Press, 2002) and To the Disappearance (Mongrel Empire Press, 2015). His poems, stories, and essays have appeared in numerous regional and national publications, including the American Indian Culture and Research Journal, American Literary Review, and Cimarron Review.
